The present disclosure relates generally to plastic (sheet) laminates, and more specifically to a plastic and glass laminate with a polymer therebetween.
Glass laminated products have contributed to society for almost a century. Beyond the well known, every day automotive safety glass used in windshields, glass laminates are used in most forms of the transportation industry. They are utilized as windows for trains, airplanes, ships, and nearly every other mode of transportation. Safety glass is characterized by high impact and penetration resistance and does not scatter glass shards and debris when shattered. Glass laminates find widespread use in architectural applications, as well.
A glass laminate typically consists of a sandwich of two glass sheets or panels bonded together with an interlayer of a polymeric film or sheet which is placed between the two glass sheets, typically plasticized polyvinyl butyral (PVB). One or both of the glass sheets may be replaced with optically clear rigid polymeric sheets such as, for example, sheets of polycarbonate materials. However, when PVB laminated polycarbonate is exposed to a warm humid environment the contact area between the polycarbonate and PVB becomes hazy. As a result of this the material looses optical clarity and a reduction of impact performance is observed.
There are two basic technologies laminating glass and polycarbonate. One process is based on polyurethane film adhesives in an autoclave process. This process has cost drawbacks, namely the costs of the polyurethane adhesive film used between the glass and the polycarbonate, and the costs of the autoclave process step. In the other process, the adhesive is a curable liquid, like UV curable acrylates or urethanes. This process suffers from delamination at the polyurethane/glass interface after aging.
Hence there is a continual need for glass-plastic laminates with good adhesion.